Oil steady near $82 before U.S. payrolls report

                                

                                
 * Oil prices squeezed by falling equities, dollar -analysts
                                
 * Coming Up: U.S. non-farm payrolls for July; 12:30 GMT
                                
 * For a technical view, click: [ID:nSGE675023]
                                
 By Alejandro Barbajosa
                                
 SINGAPORE, Aug. 6 (Reuters) - Crude oil prices were steady
on Friday near $82 before a report expected to show U.S.
employment declined for a second straight month in July, as
investors watch for clues to the pace of economic and energy
demand recovery.
                                
 Oil prices are now squeezed between the influence of
equities and the dollar, analysts said. Negative economic news
is sending stock markets and the dollar tumbling, but the
return of crude's inverse correlation with the U.S. currency is
supporting the oil market, which has recently failed to track
stock markets lower.
                                
 "Once fear subsides and people are a bit more confident
about the economic outlook, the weaker macro data doesn't seem
to have such a big impact on prices," said Ben Westmore, a
commodities analyst at National Australia Bank in Melbourne.
                                
 U.S. nonfarm payrolls probably fell by 65,000 in July, a
Reuters survey showed ahead of Friday's monthly report. The
number of Americans making new claims for jobless benefits
jumped in the week ended July 31 to the highest level in nearly
four months, weekly data showed on Thursday. [ID:nN05245807]
                                
 U.S. September crude <CLc1> added 3 cents to $82.04 a
barrel by 0230 GMT, while ICE Brent <LCOc1> shed 7 cents to
$81.54.
                                
 Front-month U.S. crude was on track for its biggest weekly
gain in four weeks, up by almost four percent, after topping
$80 a barrel for the first time in three months on Monday and
taking prices out of a persistent $10-wide trading range where
they have hovered for almost two months.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                
 For a graph comparing weekly crude price changes:
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ABE_20100608104313.jpg
                                
 For a graphic on oil's returning correlation with
currencies:
                                
 http://link.reuters.com/hab43n   
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 Japan's Nikkei average fell 1 percent on Friday, while the
dollar was on the defensive near a 3 1/2-month low against a
basket of currencies. [.T] [USD/]
                                
 A stronger dollar renders oil imports more expensive for
Asian consumers including Asia-Pacific's top five -- China,
Japan, India, South Korea and Indonesia -- which combined use
about the same amount of oil as the United States.
                                
 U.S. fuel inventories have risen for most of the northern
hemisphere summer, when gasoline demand peaks and inventories
of the fuel usually fall.
                                
 The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday
said the country's gasoline stocks rose for an unexpected sixth
consecutive week, while supplies of distillate fuel including
diesel climbed for a tenth.
                                
 "The fundamentals at some point have to reassert
themselves," Westmore said. "We had a pretty weak EIA report.
Product stocks are building and the market didn't react much."
                                
 BP <BP.L> <BP.N> finished pumping cement into its ruptured
oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday to seal off the
source of the world's worst offshore spill, paving the way to
permanently plug the blow-out later this month.
[ID:nLDE6740LH]
 (Editing by Clarence Fernandez)